NEW YORK – Tutankhamen, Richard III, Louis XVI – throughout history, the deaths of monarchs have set off wars, revolutions and writing careers. Now, the passing of the last of the imperial Ottoman Turks has led to a battle over the rent-controlled apartment of an Afghan princess on the Upper East Side.

In 1945, Ertogroul Osman moved into a two-bedroom walk-up apartment on the top floor of a three-story commercial building. Though it had a handsome mansard roof at the time and a prime uptown location, the stout 34-foot-wide property was practically a hovel compared with the 124-acre Yildiz Palace in old Constantinople where Osman was born and where his grandfather Abdul Hamid II ruled from 1876 to 1909. Had the empire not been dissolved, Osman would have taken the throne in 1994.

Instead he spent 64 years in the same apartment until he died in 2009 on a trip to Istanbul with his second wife, Her Imperial Highness Zeynep Osman, who had joined him after their marriage in 1991. Like her husband, Princess Zeynep’s royal family had had to flee its home in Afghanistan in the 1920s.

Now the princess, an Istanbul native, fears she may be forced out of her New York home.

After her building was sold in 2011 for $10.1 million, her new landlord, Avi Dishi, paid a visit to the 1,600-square-foot apartment that October.

“The first words out of his mouth were: ‘I want you out. I paid too much for this building to have you here,’” the princess, 69, recalled, sitting inside her large living room sharing platters of cookies and crackers – a courtly gesture she said she also extended to her landlord, along with any other guests.

Her desire to stay goes beyond all the fond memories, including visits from far-flung relatives and heads of state, and evenings spent with their two cats on a planted terrace, before the new landlord removed the foliage and fencing to install ventilation for a restaurant downstairs. There is also the rent, a mere $390 a month. But with all the legal fees and upkeep she and her husband have had to shoulder over the years, she insists her monthly outlay is in the thousands of dollars.

It was in January 2012 while the princess was on one of her regular visits to Turkey, where she cares for her sick sister and nephew, that Dishi served an eviction notice. Dishi, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, said in court papers that when he bought the building, the only lease he received was from 1977 and that when it expired, the occupancy became month to month. As such, he was exercising his right to terminate the lease.

The reason for a lack of leases is most likely due to changes to rent-control statutes in the 1970s, after which updated leases were no longer required. But that is not how the defense has been framed so far. The eviction notice was addressed to “E. Osman and G. Osman,” in other words, Ertogroul Osman and his first wife, Gulda, who died in 1985.

Dishi said in court papers that he had no idea Ertogroul Osman and his first wife were no longer tenants, claiming the princess never identified herself by her first name.

The court was unbothered by the errors, and on June 13, Judge Brenda Spears of Manhattan housing court denied Tarnofsky’s motion to dismiss the case. No reason was given, and Tarnofsky is appealing. Dishi’s lawyers, who also declined to comment, are now seeking materials from Princess Zeynep to prove she is entitled to the apartment, such as death and marriage certificates and expense accounts going back to 1991. The apartment is the only residential unit in the building.

The princess also was no fan of the previous landlord, who let the apartment fall into disrepair from New Mexico.

“I never would have thought things could have gotten worse,” she said, while sitting on a couch draped in a sheet, as are most of the other antiques and family heirlooms, to protect it from the leaky ceiling.

You can’t evict a dead person

Things have only gotten worse as the number of violations in the apartment have risen from 72 under the previous landlord to 201 under Dishi, city records show.

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development has spent $49,000 on repairs since 2005, including most recently replacing a banister, fixing the living room radiator and turning on the heat, which was off for much of the brutal winter. Dishi has been billed for the repairs.

“Two hundred violations is a lot for a single building, let alone a single apartment,” a department spokesman, Eric Bederman, said. “It’s clear the owner isn’t keeping the building up.”

He may well have plans to put something else up instead. In 2010, Dishi paid $24.5 million for the neighboring building, a medical office building once home to Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist. By tearing down both buildings, he could build an apartment building at least twice as large on a prime Upper East Side corner, though it would require special city approvals since it is part of a historic district.

Dishi has said the princess is herself looking to cash in.

“She explained that she was interested in moving back to her homeland, which I think is in the Ukraine, and for a ‘significant’ amount would be willing to go,” he said in court papers.

Princess Zeynep, while offended by the geographic lapse, said she was open to a deal.

“It pains me to leave, but he must be reasonable,” she said. “I am accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and he cannot just throw me out.”

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